^rtbuts  of  Hofre 

to  IjtS 

Jifatfyer  anh  ^otljer 


By  EUGENE  V.  DEBS 


W vM. 

\lJE 


(llolbat  ^®cbMn;g(Amtt6ergarg 

OP 

Jean  Daniel  Debs  and  Marguerite 
Bettrich  Debs  at  Terre  Haute, 
Indiana,  September  13th,  1899 


3 

Golden  Wedding  Anniversary 


The  celebration  of  a Golden  wedding  is 
a rare  occurrence  in  the  history  of  fami- 
lies; only  to  the  favored  few  is  such  a bless- 
ing vouchsafed.  It  is  an  occasion  when 
nuptial  vows  pledged  at  Hymen's  altar  take 
on  inexpressible  sacredness.  A far  distant 
day  is  recalled  when  “two  souls  with  but  a 
single  thought"  and  two  loving  hearts  that 
“beat  as  one,"  courageously  and  con- 
fidently entered  upon  the  voyage  of  matri- 
monial life.  Thomas  Moore,  inspired  by  the 
genius  of  love,  rapturously  sang: 

“There's  a bliss  beyond  all  that  the  minstrel  has  told. 
When  two,  that  are  linked  in  one  heavenly  tie. 
With  heart  never  changing  and  brow  never  cold. 

Live  on  thro’  all  ills,  and  love  on  till  they  die." 

It  is  not  given  to  us  children  and  grand- 
children, who  meet  today  at  the  old  home 
shrine  to  lay  our  offerings,  consecreated  by 
our  affection,  upon  the  family  altar,  to  know 
the  heart  and  soul  yearnings  of  our  aged 
parents  to  find  some  favored  spot,  some  oasis 
in  the  desert,  where  they  could  build  a home 
and  enjoy  the  fruitions  of  peace  and  con- 
tentment amidst  a family  of  bright-eyed, 
rosy-cheeked  and  merry-voiced  children. 

In  fancy's  eye  we  see  their  beautiful  and 
vine-clad  native  France;  we  see  them  in 
the  bloom  and  strength  of  youth,  standing 
at  the  altar  and  pledging  to  each  other 
unchanging  fidelity  in  storm  and  shine, 
ready  to  meet  the  future  as  the  days  un- 
folded their  duties,  their  opportunities, 
their  tasks  and  trials,  sustained  by  a faith 
and  hope  which  cheered  them  on  their  pil- 
grimage through  all  their  married  days. 


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Those  of  us  who  have  reached  years  of 
maturity  and  are  here  with  wives  and  hus- 
bands and  children  and  children’s  children, 
may  in  fancy’s  telescopic  vision  see  the 
youthful  pair  leaving  the  old  for  the  new 
world,  whispering  to  each  other  with  brim- 
ful eyes  and  quivering  lips: 

“Go  where  we  will,  this  hand  in  thine. 

Those  eyes  before  me  smiling  thus. 

Through  good  and  ill,  through  storm  and  shine. 
The  world’s  a world  of  love  for  us.” 

And  such  has  been  the  world  to  them.  Love 
has  been  their  guiding  star;  no  cloud  ever 
obscured  it;  and  the  darker  the  day  of  ad- 
versity the  brighter  shone  their  love  which 
bathed  their  home  and  our  home  in  its 
mellow,  cheering  light. 

In  celebrating  this  golden  wedding  an- 
niversary, all  the  halcyon  days  of  our  lives 
are  included  and  there  come  to  us  messages 
from  the  past,  under  the  sea  and  over  the 
land,  burdened  with  the  aroma  of  violets 
and  roses,  caught  from  the  flower  gardens 
of  memory,  planted  in  youth  and  blooming 
in  perennial  beauty  to  old  age. 

I confess  to  you,  my  venerable  parents, 
and  to  you  my  sisters  and  brothers,  and  to 
those  of  younger  generations,  to  over- 
mastering emotions  of  love  and  gratitude 
as  I survey  this  family  scene,  never  to  be 
pictured  again  save  upon  the  canvas  of  our 
memories.  But  I would  voice  no  requiem 
note.  Today  our  ears  are  not  attuned  to  the 
dirge’s  mournful  cadence.  This  is  not  the 
occasion  for  planting  weeping  willows,  the 
cypress  or  the  ivy  vine — 

“Creeping  where  grim  death  is  seen.” 

Here  the  mingled  cup  of  love  and  grati- 
tude  and  joy,  brimful,  is  quaffed  in  honor 
of  an  event  which  to  us  all  is  a priceless 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


benediction ; but,  if  from  its  fountain  a 
tear  mingles  with  the  draught  to  sparkle 
on  the  brim  of  the  loving  cup,  it  bears  tes- 
timony that  our  hearts  are  touched  by  feel- 
ings as  divine  as  ever  sanctified  human  af- 
fection. 

The  serenity,  the  rare  loveliness  of  this 
scene  create  emotions  which  no  words,  how- 
ever fitly  chosen,  can  express.  I can  but 
say  in  the  name  of  my  sisters  and  my  broth- 
ers and  those  younger  in  the  bonds  of  fam- 
ily allegiance  to  our  father — the  patriarch 
of  these  sons  and  daughters — that  we  tender 
him  our  warmest  congratulations  upon  this 
rare  occasion.  When  we  greet  him  our 
hearts  are  in  our  hands;  when  we  kiss  his 
time-furrowed  cheeks  our  hearts  are  on  our 
lips,  and  when  we  congratulate  him  upon 
this,  his  golden  wedding  anniversary,  our 
hearts  are  in  our  words. 

Freely  do  we  avow  the  fealty  of  our  love 
for  his  devotion  to  us,  his  children,  for  his 
watchful  guardianship  over  our  giddy  foot- 
steps on  youth ’s  flowery  pathways ; and 
this  love  is  blended  with  profound  veneration 
for  his  courage,  which  no  vicissitude  could 
dampen;  for  his  masculine  virtues  which 
have  endeared  him  to  the  home  circle;  for 
his  spotless  integrity  of  character  which  has 
given  him  the  confidence  of  men,  whether 
in  poverty’s  vale  or  upon  the  more  elevated 
plane  of  prosperity,  secured  by  industry  and 
frugality,  and  above  all,  for  that  parental 
ambition  and  self-denial  to  secure  for  us 
an  education  which  should  equip  his  children 
for  respectable  and  honorable  positions  in 
life. 

This,  my  beloved  and  honored  sire,  is 
the  tribute  of  affection  your  children  bring 
to  you  today.  Your  tender  and  unceasing 


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devotion  has  won  the  overflowing  gratitude 
of  our  hearts,  and  this  thankfulness,  this 
abounding  sense  of  obligation,  dearest  fath- 
er, we  children  with  the  fingers  of  our  love 
weave  today  into  a crown  and  place  it  on 
your  venerable  head,  and  though  the  years 
shall  continue  to  whiten  your  locks,  dim  the 
lustre  of  your  eyes  and  impair  the  strength 
of  your  manly  form,  the  wealth  of  our  af- 
fection shall  ever  increase,  nor  shall  it 
cease  when  the  silver  cord  be  loosed  and  at 
the  final  goal  you  lay  all  your  burdens 
down. 

And  now  our  happy  family  circle,  re- 
joicing in  kindred  ties,  will  fill  again  the 
sparkling  cup  with  the  ambrosia  of  affection 
that  we  may  drink  to: 

“My  mother’s  voice ! how  often  creep 
It’s  accents  on  my  lonely  hours. 

Like  healing  sent  on  wings  of  sleep, 

Or  dew  to  the  unconscious  flowers. 

I can  forget  her  melting  prayer 
While  leaping  pulses  fly. 

But  in  the  still,  unbroken  air 

Her  gentle  tone  comes  stealing  by — 

And  years,  and  sin,  and  folly  flee. 

And  leave  me  at  my  mother’s  knee.’’ 

There  are  two  words  in  our  language  for- 
ever sacred  to  memory — Mother  and  Home! 
Home,  the  heaven  upon  earth,  and  mother 
its  presiding  angel.  To  us,  children,  here 
today,  mother  and  home  have  realized  all  the 
longing,  yearning  aspirations  of  our  sou.s, 
and  now,  in  this  blissful  presence,  we  quaff 
to  our  mother  this  cup  full  and  overflowing 
with  the  divine  nectar  of  our  love.  I need 
not  attempt  to  recite  her  deeds  of  devotion. 
There  is  not  a page  of  our  memory,  not  a 
tablet  of  our  hearts,  that  is  not  adorned 
and  beautified  by  acts  of  her  loving  care,  in 
which  her  heart  and  her  hands,  her  eyes  and 
her  soul,  in  holy  alliance,  ministered  to  our 
happiness. 

There  was  never  a time  when  there  was 
not  a song  in  her  heart,  sweeter  than 
Aeolian  melody,  wooing  her  children  from 
folly  to  the  blessedness,  security,  peace  and 


5 


contentment  of  home.  Her  children  were 
her  jewels  in  home’s  shining  circle,  and  if 
by  the  fiat  of  death  a gem  dropped  away, 
the  affectionate  care  it  had  received  added 
soulful  charm  to  her  lullaby  songs  when  at 
night  she  dismissed  us  and  sent  us  to  dream- 
land repose. 

Years  of  duty  and  trial,  anxiety  and  care 
have  bowed  her  form,  wdiitened  her  hair, 
dimmed  her  eyes  and  robbed  her  cheeks  of 
their  maiden  bloom;  but  O,  our  mother  is 
still  to  us  our  beautiful  mother.  Her  heart 
is  as  young  and  loving  as  when  in  infancy, 
in  youth  and  in  riper  years  it  throbbed  re- 
sponsive to  our  plaints;  her  hands  are  as 
beautiful  in  our  eyes  as  when  in  our  child- 
hood they  were  laid  caressingly  upon  our 
heads,  and  her  dimpled  fingers  smoothed  our 
hair  or  wooed  back  to  order  our  truant 
tresses,  and  her  voice,  though  less  rosonant 
than  in  the  years  when  she  called  us  from 
play  to  duty,  has  the  same  cadence  as  when 
bending  over  us  she  sang  the  cradle  song 
which  lulled  to  sleep  and  to  dreams. 

O,  our  mother!  beloved  more  than  any 
wealth  of  words  could  express,  your  children 
on  this  anniversary  day  of  your  wedding 
fifty  years  ago,  offer  you,  aye,  shower  upon 
you  in  the  name  of  filial  devotion,  all  the 
holiest  treasurers  of  garnered  affection. 

“We  give  thee  all,  we  can  no  more, 

Though  poor  the  offering  be; 

Our  hearts— our  love  is  all  the  store 
And  this  we  bring  to  thee.” 

We  hear  the  wedding  bells  ringing  in 
celebration  of  the  nuptials  of  our  aged  par- 
ents—our  ears  are  attuned  to  their  merry 
chimes  and  our  hearts  respond  with  all  the 
joyousness  of  a wedding  march,  for  peace 
and  happiness  and  contentment  crown  the 
hour.  We  do  not  ask  what  the  future  has 
in  store,  we  only  know  that  we  have  the 
bride  and  groom  in  our  presence,  and  that 
it  is  an  inexpressible  joy  to  pledge  them 
anew  our  unfaltering  devotion  and  our 
eternal  love. 


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